Our U.S. Pat. No. 7,425,169, filed Dec. 30, 2004 discusses a system of interacting with a virtual representation of a real world product. According to this system, referring to FIG. 1, a user can buy a toy or other real world product such as 100, which is associated with a special code 105. The toy 100 exists in the real world, and the code 105 forms a key to a virtual world 110. The user enters the code 105 on a website and enters the virtual world 110.
The virtual world 110 provides activities and views with which the user can interact. The virtual world 110, as part of the interaction, provides a virtual replica 115, which is a representation of the actual toy 100. Users can carry out various activities in the virtual world 110 on the website with their virtual replica 115 of the toy 100 to navigate through the virtual world. For example, the user can establish a virtual house with rooms, furniture, appliances, accessories, clothing, and other things for their virtual replica 115. The user can also carry out activities to earn virtual currency or cash, and purchase virtual items using that currency or cash.
Our co-pending application Ser. No. 11/942,301, filed Nov. 19, 2007, describes transfers of rewards between websites. The disclosures of application Ser. No. 11/942,301 and U.S. Pat. No. 7,421,569 are hereby incorporated by reference herein in their entireties.